


Self-remembrance

by thenafics



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: jason is a ghost, mentions of others - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 23:12:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14067651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenafics/pseuds/thenafics
Summary: Jason may or may not be haunting Bruce from both sides of the veil.





	Self-remembrance

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick little thing. Not my best, may redo later

       It’s been so long since Bruce was surprised by the pages of a book turning to a new section when he turned away or the rustle of a moving cape inside a glass case that he doesn’t realize other people might find it strange. Tim mentions it the first few times he comes to the manor, but soon enough, he accepts the near silent companionship, even if his stuff is sometimes moved to where he can't find it (it always gets put back with a cup of coffee set on top). Alfred suddenly finds himself incapable of misplacing his reading glasses and always finds the book of poetry on his desk open to a new page before bed. Dick pretends not to notice that his hoodies always smell like cigarettes if he leaves them to hang dry in the laundry room. No one mentions Bruce leaving a new book on what had been Jason’s armchair every night and Bruce in turn doesn’t mention the one sided conversations he hears whenever someone else in the house feels Jason in the room.  
       When he sees Clayface wearing the face of his dead son, Bruce says he knows it’s not the real Jason. He doesn’t mention that he knows because Jason is still in the manor, leaving smudged fingerprints on the Batmobile’s windshield and trailing faint laughter and the smell of blood and ash through the house.  
       Jason reappears as the Red Hood and Bruce expects his ghost to go away. Instead,he wakes up in the mornings shivering from the cold and smelling like plastic explosives. Masks draw themselves onto fogged up windows. After a particularly nasty confrontation with the Red Hood, Bruce finds a piece of paper with “sorry,” penned onto it in painfully familiar writing, that is careful and neat in a way Bruce sometimes forgets that Jason could be.  
       Tim is Robin, then Stephanie, and every time Bruce mentions Jason as a cautionary tale, he hears a whispered “boom,” somewhere right next to his ear. It takes all the willpower in his body not to flinch. No one else bothers to pretend they don’t.  
       Jason is spiteful in the aftermath of Tim’s forced retirement, in the wake of Stephanie’s “death,”, after Robin is ripped from Tim once more. The ghost and the living Jason seem to act in a strange sort of opposition. The living Jason hurts the family in some backwards attempt to protect them from Bruce, but almost never goes after Bruce himself. The ghost of Jason is only ever aggressive towards Bruce, and even then, only when Bruce has hurt someone else.  
       Damian and the ghost take surprisingly well to each other. The way Damian’s hushed half conversations in arabic and farsi always elicit a carefully written response in the same language remind Bruce of Jason’s half finished lessons. He leaves language primers open in the libraries and the responses get more and more fluent. Sometimes he’ll check on Damian when he’s asleep and see a second head of dark hair poking over the back of a desk chair.  
       When the living Jason visits the manor, Bruce maybe expects only the living Jason to leave. Instead, they converse in dark corners and every time they meet, the ghostly Jason gets stronger. The library is almost never empty when he goes in now and Bruce could swear he can see more than just the usual glimpses of dark hair and a yellow cape. The apparitions of the dead Robin flit around in the corners of his vision.

The last thing Bruce hears every night before he goes to sleep is the echo of laughter.

 

“Being Robin gives me magic!”


End file.
